


Meaning of Birth

by Tormented_Gale



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eldrant, Gen, Self-Reflection, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 09:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2503274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tormented_Gale/pseuds/Tormented_Gale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sync, Luke, and Asch all reflect on their lives, and the meanings therein.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meaning of Birth

He questions his existence every chance he gets. He curses it, hates it, hates the world that dictated a necessary birth only to be thrown to the proverbial wolves. He hates so deeply and fears - oh yes, fears - so keenly that there is no room for anything else.

So he kills and follows his orders and always looks back.

*

He accepts his existence. It has been a long time in coming, especially after the long months of darkness and then lightness of heart. He had erred, and there will be no compromise when he is taken by death (combat or fonic disruption, it doesn’t matter), but he is content with himself, his identity, because he  _knows_ who he is, and that is a great relief. He has tried to live his life to make up for what he has and has not done, taking blame on his shoulders that was never his to carry.

So he lives and fights and embraces each breath.

*

He doesn’t know what to make of his existence, not anymore. Not long ago, he would simply have glared at his emotions and memories and demons until they faded into the background again, a mere buzz at the back of his mind that was never entirely gone. He will not look in a mirror - hating his physical reflection is enough for now. And that hate has better uses anyway, directed at a man who has puppeted them all as the fools they told themselves they weren’t. There’s no moment of clarity for him, no solace, no friend. He has nothing but the clothes on his back and the sword in his hand and the mission in his mind, not even his name. That, he is starting to realize, was possibly never his to have anyway.

So he fights and bleeds and fumes, and doesn’t look back.

— — —

They clash in a cacophonous mess, artes and swords and shouts and insults all lost in the noise. One of them does not understand why the other two fight. A replica and an original with nothing left, nothing to begin with, and they are  _so similar_ \- all three - but he will never admit to that. Never. Why do they fight when the world should end and they should go with it?

There is nothing for them here. The belief in friendship is meaningless. Life itself has no vibrancy, no color; it is just a blank slate of darkness and pinpricks of light that scar and burn as much as the fires of Zaleho. He is not so disillusioned that he thinks this place gives him true purpose. He knows he is being manipulated, and doesn’t care, because at least then he does not have to make the decision to live for any other reason. Yet he watches them with something akin to disbelief when they fight so willingly and so vehemently that it nearly stirs something in his own chest.

These two are nothing but fools with fools’ dreams. He had thought better of the wiser, older ex-general, saw perhaps a kindred spirit bathed in blood and disappointment and hate, but he had been wrong, and burned all the more for it. He had made the mistake of looking up to someone, of seeing a person rise from the ashes he was buried in and shine brighter than the best stars in the sky.

He was a fool, perhaps, as much as they.

*

He doesn’t want to kill anyone else. It isn’t that he’s afraid to, at least not in the same sense that he had so very long ago. It’s that he knows how precious life is, and how precious others view the lives of those they love. It is a heady realization, one that both fills him with joy and tears at his heart in equal measure, because he knows he does not have long. Few do, he reflects as he does the same with a glowing arte. He cannot allow himself the privilege of believing he might make it beyond these walls, this floating island.

But he does not expect conflict with the person he fights (though he should), nor does he expect the aid of someone who hates him. He fights side-by-side with a man he mirrors in every way, though he allows himself a quick grin at the thought that their smiles differ. His own is bright, perhaps fleeting, but true and kind and receptive. His original’s is a far cry - harsh and sad and heartrending - that perhaps he has forgotten how to do such a simple thing.

It is almost too easy to fall back into a pattern, a familiar footwork followed by both, a dance that is so intimate and so strange for both of the knowing it. His heart races and he wonders if they perhaps beat at the same rate, or if it is only a wishful thought. He wants to understand what has twisted someone so powerful and so hurt, but knows the ex-general will never tell him.

*

This foolish  _bastard!_  He’s blinded by his own hate, his own self-loathing, and there’s absolutely no way to reach someone he thought of as an ally, though never a friend. Their relationship was - at the best of times, volatile, at the worst of times, straight up violent - not one he would consider healthy or wise, but he naturally has never been one to listen to his own wisdom. This boy has let an infectious disease eat away at what could have been a singularity, a person, someone flawed and hurt but someone rising from the hellhole he was born into and reach a new apex unthought of. He is not blind, not really, not to this horrible poison, but instead almost embraces it, welcomes  _it_ as a friend when he has pushed away everyone else.

He thinks, perhaps, that he understands, probably better than the one he calls dreck. He too was thrown to the wayside, ignored until his precious master took him back, taught him that he could serve a greater purpose. Of course the older man had never actually trusted him, and he was just another cog in the machine, a turning, spinning, bloody cog. His shoulders tense at those thoughts, an involuntary motion, and he sees the question, the concern on a face he recognizes so well - it is his own, after all. He shoves the other to the side and rolls, dodging as he has been taught, body following the motions despite falling apart a little more with each one.

And he needs all of his strength against this other replica. He - He is not held back by any desire to live. No, he fights as if this will be his last, and watching the green lights flicker around him, it’s no wonder. It probably will be. His powers are terrifying in the same way that a hurricane is - there is no stopping the tearing winds, the ripping words, the wicked smiles, or the falling debris. There is nothing to do but weather the storm and wait for it to start dying down, and when it does - 

He sees the hesitation, the moment of pain flickering across a face too young and too bitter and too hateful to belong. That face is meant to smile sweetly, to show joy and understanding, but of course, he never learned those things either. It is why he knows that this person, this boy, will fight until he literally cannot stand, until his dying breath. He is drawing on a life he hates like drawing puss from a wound and he laughs - it’s almost wonderful. He throws his head back and just laughs, his throat constricting around the sound, and it’s so pitiful the ex-general wants to retch.

He has truly found nothing.

— — —

He expects the blades. In some way, he’s proud that he could fight them both, could nearly win, even if it naturally is beyond him, and he giggles and laughs and falls, and he knows this is the end. The Fon Master’s power has failed him, joining his fonons as they begin to drift apart, and his body shows the cracks he has hidden for so long. He wonders if he was ever truly alive, and that just sends him into another fit of laughter, more choking on air than true amusement.

They stand around him, warily, swords still in their hands and dripping with the red blood that flowed in his veins. So strange, that something like that was wasted on his worthless form. He wonders too if his fonons will simply dissipate and cease to exist, rounding out the circle of how pointless all of this was.

He knows the god entity of the seventh fonon will be destroyed, prays for it with his last few thoughts, his arms giving out beneath him and sending him sprawling. His chest heaves with breaths he can’t taste, and for a moment, he is blinded by clarity, by sense, and smells and sees and feels and hears - and he hates it still, hates that he can still possibly recognize the spots of color in a dark world.

 _Worthless to the end_ , he thinks. And he laughs until his voice fades to nothingness.

*

He pauses, finds himself faced with his original, his heart heavy with another death and more blood on his hands. Had his fellow replica, the image of someone he held so dear, really given up, really not cared whether he lived or died? It was such a foreign concept, a broken thought, that he could not - would not believe it. Just as he did not believe his original deserved to die.

But his ally turned enemy again, and he faced the ex-general, a man determined to prove once and for all which of them was true, and which was false. This was a deciding moment. This was the time when he became himself, when his original accepted that yes, they were separate.

When he disarms someone so precious to him, he sees the look of disbelief, the shock on his original’s face, and watches as resignation replaces hatred. That’s somehow worse, and his stomach flips and clenches uncomfortably until he speaks up.

They are different people. They lived different lives, and should continue to live those lives. They are more like brothers, more alike even by a replica and original’s standards. He smiles and reaches a hand out, peace and hope and perhaps naivety, but surely - 

There are the sounds of booted feet, of shouts, of soldiers, and they are out of time. His original will never take his hand, never have the chance to know someone that could have changed him, or at least changed his mind. They will never have a chance to sit down and talk about the manse, about their parents, about the world that rejected them both and tried to embrace them in the end. And he mourns that, mourns it more for the other than for himself, and wants to just for once offer some kind of comfort to the original, to  _his_ original, even if that comfort is not sought.

 _Don’t you die,_ he thinks. And when his original orders him away, orders him to defeat the man who manufactured both of their lives to his own whims, he does not hesitate to take the key and the sword and run without looking back.

*

This is  _his._ He may have no family, no friends, nothing but the clothes on his back and his sword in his hand, but now he can claim something else. He is Luke fon Fabre. This is his name, has been from the beginning, but now - now he can actually claim it as his own, as fiercely declared as anything else. He grins with the ferocity of a monster, his sword glistening with the blood of a fallen once-comrade, and tears into those he likely once commanded.

They are nothing more than dolls, dolls that bleed, and he loses track of how many false lives he ends. In the back of his mind he realizes that perhaps his replica is more alive than these, and fights all the harder to forget the thought. His blade rips through flesh and bone, tearing armor from shoulders and heads from necks, and though he does not laugh there is a sort of twisted joy here.

He has not felt this free in so long. Here, he is among something he knows, is a part of something greater than himself, and it is a role he can embrace. He knows he will die not long from now, and if his life can buy what is so desperately needed, then he will gladly give it. He has a purpose now, a powerful purpose, and he will not give up on that purpose.

The feral grin slowly fades from his face with every passing moment. His body grows heavier and heavier, his sword turning into a block of metal too weighty to wield, and he knows even as he is rushed, even as he slashes through them, even as he feels the tearing of his own flesh, the squealing of his innards, the slide and cough of something irrevocably wrong, that he is triumphant.

His enemies lay slain around him, creating a lake of blood that will eventually reach the edges of the room, staining everything in that bright, wet red. He chokes on his breaths, his blood, and falls against the pillar behind him, driving the blade deeper inside, the squelch of it and the shudder too much, too much.

He is alone, as he should be, as he was born to be, and he allows himself a small smile as his vision fades at the edges, black eating all of the color from his world. Even his coughs do not hurt, not like they should, and while it also should be an alarming fact, he feels no fear or terror. There is, perhaps, a contented sort of resignation that rises in his breast, and he lets his eyes close, tasting copper and doubt and bitterness, but the flavor, he thinks, is not so strong.

 _Kill him, dreck_ , he thinks as his chin begins to fall, and for the first time, there is no venom in the title, only a hint of perhaps admiration and acceptance that will never be heard.


End file.
